


The Baxley Way Horror

by orphan_account



Series: Decaydance Paranormal Investigators [1]
Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: A Decaydance Paranormal Investigators story, Gen, Minor Violence, Paranormal AU, check end notes for rambling, some pre-Peterick and Trohley if you squint really hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 17:29:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4188624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pete Wentz was never a spiritual guy, and had always scoffed at stories of ghosts and demons....that is, until he comes face-to-face with one himself. He tries to warn anyone who will listen about the horrors that live inside the house down on Baxley Way, but no one listens except for his three close friends, who agree to enter the haunted place and get solid proof. What they find is far worse than they imagined, and the encounter may have a deadly ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Baxley Way Horror

It was a dark and windy night in the outskirts of Chicago, the kind of night where people stay indoors and rowdy gangs of kids roam the deserted streets. Pete wished he was at home right now, it was cold and he was alone, making him an easy target for said kids. He hurried along, leaves scattering and crunching under his feet and sneakers slapping against the pavement. The young man was just in view of his own street when he heard footsteps behind him and what sounded like multiple people laughing. His eyes widened and he scanned the area for a place to hide before his eyes came to rest on a house in the first lot of his street. Perfect! The best part was, everyone knew this particular house and believed it was haunted, so if Pete hid in there, he'd be golden! He ran down the sidewalk and jumped the small fence in the house's front yard, making a beeline for the front door as the voices got closer. Luckily for him, it was unlocked, so he slipped inside and closed the door behind him, slumping against it with a relieved sigh. He was safe! After taking a moment to get his bearings, Pete looked around and took in his surroundings for the first time. The house smelled like mildew, emptiness, and something else he couldn't quite place; it was almost metallic and smelled nasty, like rotting food. The wood floors creaked like they were about to break, and the carpet beyond was stained yellow and- wait, was that red? Pete gulped and stepped forward to get a closer look, willing himself to remain calm. Everyone said this place was haunted after the supposedly-brutal murders of its former occupants, but Pete was a firm denier of the paranormal, because he believed that it was just a load of bullshit that the older kids made up to scare their little siblings and the adults encouraged so that they would stay away from the house. But now? Pete was starting to believe the murder side of the story, for when he looked at the red stain it looked suspiciously like blood. He stumbled back, the metallic smell stronger than ever, and then he heard it. The sound that would remain with him for the rest of his life. 

The sound started slowly, a faint knocking that picked up rhythm the longer Pete listened. It sounded like someone was tapping against a door upstairs, (the stairs were conveniently located right in front of Pete, lucky him) a small tap-tap-tap. But the more he focused on it, heart beating wildly in his chest, it picked up speed and ferocity until it sounded like someone was banging on the door hard enough to break it off its hinges. By this time, Pete decided to get the hell out of there and had turned to leave when the banging turned into a crash, and a door from upstairs opened. The young man yanked open the front door and ran onto the porch and jumped off, breaking into a sprint through the front yard and over the fence. He only looked over his shoulder once, and what he saw terrified him. A shadow was at the top of the stairs, and Pete caught a glimpse of red, hateful eyes before the front door slammed shut on its own. He didn't stop running until he reached his own home, and he slept with the light on for the next week. 

oOoOoOoOoO

"C'mon Joe, you gotta believe me! I know what I saw!" Joe rolled his eyes, shaking his head as Pete tried to justify his ghost story for the third time this week. It had all started Monday morning, when Pete came to school with bloodshot eyes and a nervous persona. When his friends had asked what his deal was, he had launched into a story about that haunted house on Baxley Way that everyone knew to avoid. It had been a cool story for about two days, but it was now Thursday and he wasn't letting up. Gabe, Travie, and Mikey had all but ditched him, leaving Joe, Andy, and Patrick to deal with the older kid, and Joe was starting to get tired of it. Luckily for Pete, the other two were way more patient. 

"Okay Pete, we believe you. Just a quick question, you've been taking your medication, right?" Andy looked genuinely concerned and had every right to be, Pete got weird whenever he was off his meds. 

"Yes Andy, I take then every day! I'm not hallucinating, there's something living in that house! Something evil guys, I'd even say it was demonic." 

"Pete, you don't even believe in demons. You're an atheist." 

"Then how do you explain the red-eyed shadow?" 

Patrick sighed, seeing that they clearly weren't getting anywhere. He looked at Joe and Andy and they just shrugged, at a lost as to what they should do to get Pete to snap out of it. After a moment, he decided to just play along and see what Pete himself recommended. 

"Fine, maybe you did see something. But what do you want us to do about it? We're not the Ghostbusters dude." 

Pete bit his lip, silent for a few moments before his eyes lit up and he got that 'I have an idea!' look on his face. "Hey Andy, you and Joe still have those cameras left over from when you guys were filming your movie, right?" The two boys nodded, not sure where Pete was going with this. "And Trick, you have a bunch of tape-recorders, yeah?" Patrick nodded as well, eyes narrowing at he started to figure out Pete's plan. "And I have some walkie-talkies, so this could work!" 

"Pete, we are not going to go hunt some ghost, you must be out of your damn mind." 

"It's a demon Trick, not a ghost."

"Oh, pardon me, a demon, that makes it so much better! And stop calling me that!" 

"C'mon guys, please? Worse thing that could happen is that I was wrong and nothing happened, and you guys can say 'I told you so'. Do it for me?" Pete started making that face he does whenever he really really wants something, and all the guys just sighed and gave in. With a chorus of half-hearted "Fines", Pete had his team set up. They arranged to meet up later that night, and they promised to bring all their supplies with them. If only they had known what they were really signing up for. 

oOoOoOoOoO

It was a cold night, but luckily not a windy one this time. The four young men stood on the sidewalk in front of the house, talking strategy while casting glances at the windows and door. It had been decided that there would be two teams, Andy and Joe and Pete and Patrick, and that they would split up to cover the first floor before going up as a group to the second. Each boy had a walkie-talkie and each group had a video camera, tape-recorder, and two flashlights. They also had their phones with them in case they needed to call the cops or something, per Patrick's request. After it was all decided, they hopped the fence and approached the house, gathering on the front porch to collect themselves before they entered the building. Andy and Patrick switched on the cameras, Pete and Joe turned on the recorders, and they all turned on their flashlights. With a deep breath, Pete opened the door and they entered, shutting it as quietly as they could behind them. Pete and Patrick headed for the living room while Andy and Joe headed for the kitchen. The hunt had officially begun. 

oOoOoOoOoO

 

"Pete, this is stupid. And what is that smell? It's like something died in here." 

"Something probably did, you see those stains? They're blood, you can still smell it." 

"Oh, gross." 

Pete snickered and kept walking, looking around the room and holding the recorder up so he could try and catch any supernatural noises. Patrick filmed everything he saw, wrinkling his nose at the moldy furniture and the ever-present rotting smell. They could hear Andy and Joe moving around in the kitchen, and everything seemed normal so far.

They stood in the living room for about twenty minutes before wandering over to the kitchen to join Andy and Joe, having found all the other rooms to be either empty or locked, and they all took some time to gag over the foul rotting food that had been left in the fridge and cabinets. Andy had just started talking about "how unsanitary this place is, do you know how much vermin and pests are probably living in here?" and "we're probably going to get sick from all the diseases that are in this kitchen, we should get out and call Poison Control or some shit." when they heard a faint sound from upstairs. Pete grabbed Patrick's arm in excitement, shushing Andy as they all carefully listened to the little tap-tap-taps that was coming from an upstairs room. With a startled look at each other, all the boys slowly gathered their gear and crept towards the stairs and the escalating noises.

oOoOoOoOoOo

By the time the four had made it to the top of the stairs, the knocking had stopped and the house was silent. The room where the noises had been coming from was behind a closed door at the end of the hall, and they crept towards it, trying not to make a sound. When they reached it, Pete held up five fingers, counting down and mouthing "Five, four, three, two, go!" And slammed the door open. They ran inside, cameras and flashlights at the ready, to find an empty room with nothing but a bed, some extension cords, and a lamp sitting on the floor; basically, it was an unfinished bedroom if they had to guess. As they moved farther inside, the door slammed and their flashlights flickered then died out, causing Patrick to make an undignified whimpering noise. They stood in a huddle in the center of the room, shivering in the cold and listening as Andy weighed the pros and cons of jumping out the second-story window when they heard a maniac laugh followed by the sound of the extension cords moving. 

Pete was the first to respond, jumping onto the bed as the cords whipped around Joe's ankles and toppled him to the floor.  
Another went for his neck, but Andy hoisted him up by his arms and dragged both Joe and Patrick up onto the bed and climbed up immediately after. While the extension cords wiggled on the floor like snakes, the lamp was flickering on and off, illuminating a shadowy figure that stood in the center of the writhing mess. It looked like TV static in human form, with only a pair of glowing red eyes distinguishing any features. The thing moved towards the horrified boys, but stopped at the foot of the bed and in arms reach of Pete. It glared menacingly and, to their shock, spoke in a deep, guttural voice. 

"Why have you disturbed my resting place?" 

'Resting place? That didn't sound good at all', thought Patrick before he answered in a squeaky voice, "We didn't know, we just wanted to check out the place! We'll, um, leave right now if you want?" He felt Pete grab hold of his hand and squeeze tightly, and could see Joe and Andy pressed together from out of the corner of his eye. After a tense moment, the figure nodded and spoke once more. 

"Go, and never return. Avenge my death, I did nothing wrong." And with that, the thing disappeared. The extension cords fell slack, and their flashlights turned on while the lamp died. They hopped down and ran for the door, and, finding it unlocked, fled down the stairs and out of the house. 

Once safely on the sidewalk, the boys looked at each other in shocked silence, trying to figure out what the hell just happened. Pete was the first to speak, breaking into a wide grin. "So believe me now?" He asked, laughing at the nervous confirmations from the other three and threw his arm around Patrick's shoulder, happy with that night's achievement. 

"Wait, did that guy say 'resting place?' What's that supposed to me?" Asked Joe, eyes suddenly growing wide. "Is whatever that thing was buried here? We should call, like, the cops or something! I bet he's one of the victims, maybe there's a clue to who did it, since they were never caught." The other three nodded, at a lost as what else to do since they were certainly not going back into the house to investigate further. With quiet 'goodnights' and a promise from Pete that he would call the police as soon as he got home, the four split ways and headed towards their respective homes, exhausted and sufficiently-traumatized for the night.

OoOoOoOoOo 

Later that week, the news reported the case of a discovered body in the abandoned house on Baxley Way. After an anonymous tipper called the police station, investigators dug up the front and back yard, skeptical but cautious all the same. They found the skeleton of a man buried beneath the gnarled oak tree in the backyard, perfectly intact and with what looked like an electrical cord wrapped around his neck. Further analysis of the bones found that they belonged to one of the suspects in the murders of the house's occupants, who had apparently been killed himself the same night as the victims. If guesses had to made, the man probably tried to turn on his partner and got himself killed, and was dumped in the back before his accomplish fled. The case was re-opened after having gone cold for years, and a red-alert was raised for the other murderer.  
Pete watched all of this unfold on the news from his living room, accompanied by Patrick, Andy, and Joe. After that night, the four had grown even closer, and had decided that this was something they wanted to do: check out hauntings and possibly bring people to justice. There was, however, a debate as to what their name should be. 

"How about just the Ghost Hunters?" 

"No, that's too boring! What if we called ourselves Clandestine Investigators?" 

"Pete, that makes no sense. Would Paranormal Justice League work? I mean, we did help in possibly catching a mass-murderer." 

"No, Andy, that sounds like something out of a comic book. How about Decaydance Paranormal Investigators, after that band we were going to start but never did? We can just call it DPI for short." 

"That's perfect! Look at Joe, taking initiative on something! Thought I'd never see the day." Pete cackled and leaned away when Joe tried to punch his arm, moving to sit on Patrick's lap instead, despite the other boy's spluttering and attempts to push him off. 

The rest of the afternoon was spent looking up various haunted places and marking them down in a notebook, the four making plans to visit a haunted restaurant in the heart of Chicago the next Friday after school. Joe offered the use of his beat-up van, and Patrick said he would get one of his artsy friends to paint their name on the side. All in all, DPI was off to a good start, and many more adventures were to follow.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow I hope this turned out well, but here's the pilot for my new series! I hope you all liked it, and I'll try to publish a new story every week or so, so tune in when you can! I hope I wrote the boys right, but I can always improve I guess, please leave a comment if you have any criticism or advice. Thanks for reading!


End file.
